


Blinding Lights

by tiger_moran



Series: Lyric [20]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Love, M/M, Referenced Ronald Adair, References to jealousy, Some angst, referenced injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:15:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27541423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiger_moran/pseuds/tiger_moran
Summary: Twentieth in a collection of standalone but also interconnected Moriarty and Moran fics inspired by lyrics from songs, particularly pop/rock songs.
Relationships: Sebastian Moran/James Moriarty
Series: Lyric [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992709
Kudos: 6





	Blinding Lights

**Author's Note:**

> The Weeknd - Blinding Lights
> 
> I've been on my own for long enough  
> Maybe you can show me how to love, maybe  
> I'm going through withdrawals  
> You don't even have to do too much  
> You can turn me on with just a touch

“Professor?” Moran can barely keep the concern out of his voice, which Moriarty hates – that Moran feels sorry for him still and that he worries so – but at least he has called him Professor; there are times and places where he likes Moran to call him 'James', but this is not one of them.

“I'm all right.”

“You're in pain?”

“I'm all right!” Moriarty says rather more sharply, through gritted teeth. Although he is practically shaking with the pain, but refusing to give in to the urge to pour laudanum down his throat or even to inject morphine. His joints ache, even his once-broken bones themselves seem to ache, and the light, despite the blinds being partly drawn, still seems too bright, and it makes his head ache.

He has it all still – the bottles of laudanum, the phials of morphine, the syringe in its leather case - as if to torment himself further. Since returning to Moran he has used the morphine once, and once only, when the pain became too much for him to endure, and Moran had watched him then intently all the while, as he drew the drug into the syringe, as he slid the needle in, as he injected the drug. There was concern written across Moran's face, though perhaps that was less to do with Moriarty utilising the drug again and more to do with him simply being vexed that the Professor was in such pain as to need to do so.

He dare not let it become routine though, using either, lest he slip back into using them less for an actual need and more simply because he enjoys some of the effects rather too much – not only the relief from pain but the euphoria of them was pleasant indeed. Still though he despises how muddle-headed they made him feel and he has come to understand at least in part Moran's own loathing for such drugs, for not only do they impair his sleep, they affect his dreams too when he does sleep, making him dream vividly of swirling water, of thrashing about in a churning frothing mass of dark liquid. He is better without that, even with the pain.

“If you want me to do anything...” Moran's tone implies that 'anything' even includes fetching the morphine for him, as much as he evidently dislikes Moriarty taking it.

“You may lower the blinds a little more, and then, distract me, my dove.”

Obediently Moran gets up to lower the blinds further. “Distract you how?” he asks. He hardly thinks the Professor is going to be in the mood for anything too physically intimate, and he cannot think of much else he can say or do that will be enough to take Moriarty's mind off the pain. Moran is no mathematician, so he cannot discourse with him on some such topic for instance.

“Use your imagination.”

“I don't...” Moran begins hesitantly. He would not usually disobey Moriarty, but now his mind is a blank and he can think of no way he can manage to distract the Professor from his pain.

“All right, let me ask you something.”

“What?”

“You and the _Honourable_ Ronald Adair.”

As Moran returns to sit in the chair opposite the Professor, he looks down at the floor, at the faded pattern in the rug. They have not raised the matter of Adair at all since Moriarty's return, but the lad's presence has somehow hung between them all the while, like a ghost.

“Did you love him?” Moriarty asks.

“Good god, no,” Moran scoffs, and it occurs to him, this is really the first time he can remember the Professor speaking of 'love'.

“But you bedded him.” It is not a question.

Moran nods.

“More than once?”

Moran closes his eyes tightly, as if the light is paining him too. “Yes, sir.”

“Why?”

“Because I was drunk, because all I had to go 'ome to was an empty bed, and he wanted me, and for a few minutes... that almost felt like enough.”

“But it wasn't.”

“No. It wasn't.” And he tried to warn Ronnie, didn't he? That he was dangerous; that to dally with him was to court death. That poor silly besotted boy and his absurd threats against Moran; really he was just a child having a tantrum when he couldn't have his way, although his tantrums did take the form of making promises to expose the Colonel for what he _really_ was. He certainly will not keep them now, of course.

Moran sits with his hands resting on his knees, staring at them. “Why did you do it?” he asks without looking at Moriarty.

Moriarty smiles thinly. “I did not.”

“Arrange it then.”

Moriarty considers this briefly. “Even that is... not precisely the truth. I merely... made a suggestion here and there.” And pulled a few strings, whispered in a few ears, played the professor manipulating the puppets. The newspapers may have lamented the young man's demise, talked of how he had no enemies, no vices, but they knew nothing, and even if they did, Adair's family would have thoroughly ensured anything _scandalous_ was suppressed. “Anyway, would you have preferred him left alive to destroy you?”

“No. But...”

“But what?”

“I think he cared for me, truly.”

“I see.”

“I feel sorry for him.” Because now the Professor is back with him, there is a little more room in Moran's heart for other feelings. Although a man like Adair, perhaps he would have destroyed himself anyway sooner or later, Moran supposes. Even so, one cannot help who one falls for, and poor Adair had the particularly bad luck to fall for Moran, and he does pity him for that. Perhaps things would have been so much better for them both if they had never met, but then again, perhaps not. “I nearly hanged for his death too,” he says.

“Your arrest was unintended. I admit that... things slipped somewhat further out of my control than I would have liked.” Ironically Moriarty rather needed Moran himself to do the deed - others are indeed perfectly capable of taking the shot, but are far less reliable overall. “But come now, chick, do you really think I would have allowed you to hang? Who do you think, for instance, arranged for the air rifle to so _mysteriously_ disappear?”

Moran smiles thinly at this. “I thought that was just Scotland Yard's usual incompetence,” he says, grinning.

“I thought it for the best that the trial be left to take its course. Snatching you away before the trial took place would only have made you look guilty, and you might have ended up on the run needlessly. Had it gone a different way though, I would of course have intervened.”

“So, was it protectiveness, or jealousy, that drove you to it?” Moran enquires.

Moriarty looks at him strangely, as if it has never occurred to him to wonder. “I did not want him to harm you.”

“That's not an answer.”

“Isn't it?” Moriarty smiles. “All right,” he says after a moment's consideration. “I confess, for a time I thought perhaps... when you already thought me long dead, you would be better off not knowing the truth, and that I could endure seeing you with someone else.”

“And could you?”

Moriarty shakes his head slowly. “No.” Seeing Moran with that young man, yes, he was hurt by it – hurt more than he ever believed could be possible. It made him realise with greater clarity than ever before, not all wounds are physical. He does not blame Moran for that though. He does not even particularly blame Adair either and Moriarty's hatred for the man is surprisingly impersonal really. Adair was simply a rather foolish young man with an unfortunate taste in men, and Moriarty's loathing for him stems primarily from the young man's subsequent erratic and threatening behaviour towards Moran. Is Moriarty jealous that Moran bedded him? Of course. Does that make Moriarty despise Adair more than anyone else who has got in his way before though? Not really. And was that enough reason to want him dead? No. Moriarty is capable of much, but he is not that petty.

He looks down at the floor for a moment, still thinking things through, gathering his thoughts together. “Although, perhaps things may have been different,” he says at last, “if you had seemed... happy.”

Moran's eyes narrow at this, as he considers its implications. Does this truly mean the Professor would have sacrificed his own happiness for Moran's? He has never thought the man capable of such a degree of selflessness. “I wasn't happy though, never truly could be, I reckon, not without you,” he says.

Moriarty looks up at him again, seeming strangely subdued still, and he is thinking too, how far from happy he was also without the Colonel by his side.

“Professor.” Moran stands up and crosses the meagre distance between the two of them, sitting down on the sofa beside Moriarty. He seems to be about to touch Moriarty, then hesitates, which stings Moriarty a little.

Moriarty does not like being touched much – he has always tended to flinch away from even the jovial pats on the back or shoulder of many of his fellow men. With Moran though, who has always respected his boundaries, he became comfortable with it, allowing a degree of physical intimacy from him that he would accept from none other, because Moran always seemed to know when to hold back or when to seek permission to proceed or at what point he needed to withdraw. But now he does hesitate, and at first the Professor does assume this means he has damaged something between them; that Moran no longer perhaps even truly wants physical intimacy with him.

He realises his error a couple of seconds later.

“May I... hold your hand?” Moran asks. “I just... I don't want to hurt you.”

In answer, Moriarty holds out his left hand to Moran, who takes it very gently.

“I don't know what'll make your pain worse,” Moran says. He still holds the Professor's hand very carefully, as if he is cupping a tiny animal, something as delicate as a wren, a hummingbird even perhaps. “You 'ave to tell me, if I'm causing you pain.”

“I will.”

Still very gently, Moran leans against him, resting his head on the Professor's shoulder. “I am sorry for Ronnie, and I wish... things could 'ave gone better for 'im,” he says. “But I'm so glad you came back.”

  
  



End file.
